Annual Bonfire Night Post

It’s that time of year again when I remind everyone that Guy Fawkes was a religious extremist and so were his co-conspirators. Guy Fawkes changed his name to Guido while fighting in the Spanish army against protestants in the Netherlands. It made him sound more Spanish and Catholic. Insert me rolling my eyes at the vanity right now.

Catesby, who organised the Gunpowder Plot was a gentleman from Yorkshire. Yorkshire was a haven for Catholics for centuries after King Henry had his tantrum. The people involved in the Plot were gentlemen who wanted to increase their influence at Court. You see, with the change from Tudors to Stuarts, people who had previously had influence in the running of the country lost influence.

King James and his faction were also religious extremists. James was seriously paranoid, which given that his father was murdered and his mother was forced into a third marriage, held prisoner by her husband and his faction, escaped to England, imprisoned and then murdered by her own cousin isn’t surprising. He was raised by Protestant extremists of the Kirk variety, during a period when Europe was generally at war with itself, in wars where class was more important than religion sometimes. John Knox was allowed within spitting distance of the child king; someone should have done something about that.

The daft also git thought demons and witches were real; he wrote books about it. He enjoyed torturing alleged witches while in Scotland. When he moved to London, he wasn’t allowed to torture people anymore. Unless they were planning treason. The man had some issues.

If you want some context here’s an episode of It Could Happen Here:

It’s funny listening to an American try to explain Bonfire Night, especially as an Englishman is there providing pointers.

Parliament was not the neo-Gothic monstrosity we see now. It was more a mix of village and palace with gardens, houses, and chapels. The Commons met in St Stephan’s Chapel, the Lords met in the Princes Hall. The King had his own gate. Around the buildings and under them were storage areas and building used for various businesses. One of them was a wine warehouse. The owner kept her stock in the undercroft of Princes Hall. She rented it out to some random gentlemen. Some of the gentlemen were members of parliament for their communities.

Members of Parliament were all gentlemen, no tradesmen, no women of any estate, certainly no one who worked for a living. Being wealthy was the only qualification you needed. It was a closed shop; there could be a town of thousands, with a dozen electors who sent two MPs to Parliament. It was corrupt as hell.

Actually Parliament still is, but that’s another conversation.

Back to the Plot.

The Plotters were probably rumbled fairly early on in their plotting, but the people responsible for investigating let them have a little more rope to hang themselves with (or kindling, given the burning that happened). The gunpowder was damp and the barrels rotten. Guy Fawkes wouldn’t have managed to get more than a fizz and sputter out of it, had the explosion worked. If the gunpowder had been good and the barrels sound the explosion would have killed everyone within three miles, as well as the Lords and King.

The Plot was foiled. The Plotters were rounded up, tortured, and executed.

And then the King and Parliament set about making life hell (or even more of a hell) for Catholics in Britain and Ireland. Thus followed several hundred years of persecution and religious enmity between Catholics and Protestants in the islands.

So, a mass murdering gang of war criminals/religious extremists tried to kill a torturer and his friends, and were killed in their turn. They’re none of them good humans. If I believed in the Christian concept of Hell, I’d hope they were all suffering for the pain they have caused. I don’t, so instead I’m going to make sure the unearned glorious reputations they’ve earned over the centuries are properly punctured.

And we have an excuse to burn people in effigy on bonfires, explode fireworks, and play games.